I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of composer, conductor, pianist and author Pierre Boulez on January 5, 2016. I woke up this morning (Wednesday, Jan. 6), made myself a cup of tea, opened my laptop and continued working on a Max/MSP patch to run the electronics for Boulez’s Anthemes II for violin and electronics - a project I’ve been working on constantly for the last few days - when I took a brief detour to check the news. The first thing I saw on NPR was an article titled "Composer Pierre Boulez, A Reverend Iconoclast, Has Died at 90," and I was completely stunned. Literally, stunned for a second - I couldn’t move enough to refresh the page to make sure the article was real. After a minute or two the initial shock wore off and I read the article in front of me. I went on a search to find more articles that could confirm the story. I just couldn’t believe that Boulez had passed away.
I’m not sure why I had such a hard time believing this was true. Boulez was 90 years old and I knew that he had health issues that were preventing him from traveling to various performances and festivals throughout 2015, but it still came as such a shock to me. The music world lost such an incredibly talented, creative, thoughtful, and imaginative musician - a man who is arguably one of the most important figures of the 20th century whose music, recordings and writings will continue to influence musicians long into the 21st century. I have only been familiar with Boulez and his contributions to music for a decade, but I can honestly say that he has been the most influential voice on my career as a musician. My first interaction with Boulez’s music was when I was an undergraduate at Ohio University. His name came up in a history book in relation to his work Le Marteau sans Maitre and post-WWII Darmstadt serialism, but little time was spent on the topic. I mostly knew Boulez as a conductor, and I owned many of his recordings (most importantly The Complete Works of Anton Webern), and listened to them often. When I began my graduate studies at Bowling Green State University I became much better acquainted (figuratively) with Boulez the composer while taking a contemporary music survey course with Dr. Mikel Kuehn. I later studied composition with Dr. Kuehn, and he continued to foster my interest in Boulez’s music through score study, guided reading, small exercises in serial and post-serial composition, etc. I was fascinated by the immense spectrum of timbral color that Boulez could get from both a large orchestra and a solo performer. His mathematical compositional techniques appealed to my more rational side of thinking and the visceral result of his music appealed to my personal aesthetic taste. And, if I’m being honest, his writings appealed to my love of working against the grain and shaking things up. Boulez became a new compositional idol for me, and he has remained a constant source of inspiration. While many will remember Boulez as a young polemical composer/performer in the middle of 1940s war-ravaged Europe, I hope that most will choose to remember him for the numerous contributions and innovations he made to the world of contemporary music. Additionally, there are myriad interviews with Boulez’s colleagues over the years (Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Pierre Aimard and others) who speak very highly of Boulez as a person, speaking of his gentle demeanor and lighthearted attitude. Was he an intense musical figure? Yes. Did he place extreme demands on performers? Yes, that too. Did he say outlandish inflammatory things at a time when he was a young man surrounded by musical pioneers in the center of new music of the world and was basically given a podium and a bullhorn? Yes, but that should all be water under the bridge at this point. With that out of the way, what I have read so far in obituaries and social media postings have been incredibly positive and uplifting and speak very highly of Boulez both as a musician and as a human being. I can only hope that this kind of courtesy and heartfelt remembrance of a great musical hero and pioneer will continue. And with that, I say goodbye, Maestro Boulez, and thank you for all that you've given me, and more importantly, thank you for everything you've given to the world of music.
Below is a selection of obituaries, videos of Boulez’s music and a video tribute to Boulez put together by Universal Edition.
Articles: The New York Times BBC The Guardian The Telegraph Universal Edition Tribute (all interviews available in full on the UE youtube channel)
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On July 27, Eric Guinivan (the curator of the website Composer’s Circle) published research on programming trends among American orchestras, specifically the number of living vs. deceased composers on orchestra programs in the 2015-16 concert season. The article was very interesting, and while there was nothing surprising in the data Eric gathered, it was good to be able to apply empirical data to the topic. Here’s a quick rundown of the numbers Eric presented: - Living composers account for 10.9% of orchestra programming - 162 pieces by living composers out of 1,483 total pieces programmed in the 2015 16 season - Living female composers is limited mostly to Jennifer Higdon, Anna Clyne, Gabriella Lena Frank and Sarah Kirkland Snider - Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Strauss make up more than 25% (387 pieces) of orchestral programming (Please see the rest of Guinivan’s article for more details. It’s an interesting article and must-read for composers, especially young/emerging composers) Again, this shouldn’t be shocking to anyone who follows orchestra concert seasons. Guinivan’s research confirms the upsetting fact that orchestras and large concert halls simply are no longer a primary support system of the music of today. The numbers in Guinivan’s study combined with this article by New Yorker columnist Alex Ross (and many others like it) paint a dismal picture of the current state of contemporary music. It would seem that audiences, curators, and now even performers are less interested in hearing and/or performing new works by young composers. But is that actually true? I, personally, am not satisfied with that mindset, whether it is the truth or not. That said, Guinivan’s article got me thinking. I knew that there are many outlets for living composers - calls for scores, established new music festivals, start-up festivals, touring chamber groups and soloists actively commissioning new works, artist residencies, etc. After making a long list of opportunities and outlets for younger generations of composers I decided to do my own version of Guinivan’s study. I gathered programming information for the 2015-16 season for various chamber ensembles, primarily American chamber groups. I then gathered the total number of living and deceased composers per ensemble. I calculated the number of living composers, deceased composers, male, female, total number of works by a composer and total number of commissioned works by each composer. After gathering this data for each ensemble I made a database of all the composers to take a look at the numbers without dealing with the issue of duplication (in other words, the database calculations would only count a composer once even if they appear on the roster of multiple ensembles). Then there was the issue of scope. Chamber music is a very broad category. To get a good sampling of (nearly) everything that goes on in chamber music I broke ensembles up into the following categories: - Mixed ensembles of more than 8 players (8 ensembles) - Mixed ensembles of 4-8 players (4 ensembles) - String quartet (4 ensembles) - Saxophone quartet (2 ensembles) - Wind quintet (2 ensembles) - Percussion ensemble (2 ensembles) - Brass quintet (2 ensembles) - Vocal ensemble, mostly a capella (2 ensembles) The following is a list of all of the ensembles used for this research. American Modern Ensemble * American Brass Quintet * ^ Crash Ensemble * Meridian Arts Ensemble + Ensemble Dal Niente * ^ Emerson String Quartet Ensemble Modern Julliard String Quartet Ensemble Intercontemporain Kronos Quartet Great Noise Ensemble Imani Winds * ^ Ictus Madera Wind Quintet + ^ International Contemporary Ensemble * ^ Prism Quartet * + Bang-On-A-Can All Stars * ^ XASAX Quartet + eighth blackbird * ^ Line Upon Line Percussion * ^ Loadbang * ^ Third Coast Percussion ^ Yarn/Wire * ^ Roomful of Teeth * Quince Contemporary Ensemble * ^ JACK Quartet * * = ensemble was contacted and directly provided programming information + = ensemble repertoire list and past programs used to collect data; programs subject to change during season, full rep. list is used throughout concert season ^ = ensemble does residencies at schools/universities during concert season and performs student works not listed on regular concert season So what did the numbers look like, you ask? Here’s a short breakdown: - 934 total pieces by 561 composers - 443 out of 561 are living composers (79%) - 118 deceased composers (21%); compared to 89.1% of orchestra programming - 36 composers deceased within the last 25 years - 476 male composers to 85 female composers - 15% female composers. Still a terrible number In short, the numbers for chamber ensembles is totally opposite of what Guinivan found to be the trend for orchestras. The only number that isn’t drastically different is the number of female composers. While 15% is an embarrassingly small number (and poor representation) of female composers, what is important is that the 15% represents a total of 85 female composers. Compare that to a little more than 4 in orchestral programming. The two graphs below show the difference in programming living vs. deceased composers for the chamber groups in my study and the orchestras in Guinivan’s study. I was really excited by the results on a preliminary compiling of all the data, so I decided to dig a little deeper and see what else I could uncover. Here are a few more tidbits: - 934 total pieces programmed - 265 by deceased composers (28%) - 669 by living composers (72%) - compared to 162 by orchestras (who are also programming roughly 549 more pieces than chamber groups [60% more music than chamber groups]) - 281 commissioned works - 30% of total programming is made up of commissions - Loadbang, Yarn/Wire, Crash, Great Noise Ensemble, Bang-On-A-Can All Stars create most of their programs from commissioned works due to the nature of the instrumentation - 41% of music by living composers is made up of commissions Those are some pretty great figures if you ask me. It seems from these numbers alone that the chamber groups are not only supporting the music of living composers, but they are actively commissioning new works! The numbers for commissions got me thinking even more about who exactly are these ensembles commissioning? Bill Doerrfeld wrote and article for New Music Box called “Ageism in Composer Opportunities” about the limited opportunities made available to aging composers, and my research made me wonder if I could find anything to confirm or deny Mr. Doerrfeld’s claims. Here is what I came up with: - 443 total living composers - 243 composers under the age of 50 - 200 over the age of 50 - 323 pieces by composers under the age of 50 (34.6% of total programming!) - 101 living composers with multiple pieces programmed - 281 Commissioned works - 133 composers under 50 with commissioned works - 165 total commissions by composers under 50 - 100 total composers over 50 with commissioned works - 112 total commissions by composers over 50 4 commissions by deceased composers; pieces still part of ensemble repertoire and programming catalog Well it would seem that if you’re a composer under 50 living in America and actively writing chamber music then you’re in a pretty good place. That isn’t to say that the state of things for composers over 50 is necessarily awful, but there is a slight tilt toward favoring programming and commissioning younger composers, at least by the ensembles who took part in my research. The graphs below give you a better look at this information. The following graph shows all of the information gathered in the master database of composers The last thing I decided to look into were the numbers for the ensembles themselves instead of looking primarily at the master list of composers. The following is the breakdown of some ensemble data: Top 10 Ensembles programming living composers
Top 10 Ensembles for programming women
The following graphs show the percentage of living and deceased composers broken down by ensemble (top) and the total number of pieces programmed by living and deceased composers divided by ensemble (bottom) So what did I take away from all of this? Well, first, the state of new music is not in dire straits as I’ve always believed. The chamber ensembles sampled for this research are not only actively seeking out living composers, but they are thriving on that music. In addition to that they also favor music by younger generations. While this may be upsetting for the older generations of composers, it is comforting (at least for me) to know that so many talented ensembles are giving the composers of my generation a voice. Something else I found interesting while poring over the numbers is that many of these ensembles perform more frequently at venues other than concert halls and universities. While there is a large number of university performances, it seems that many smaller ensembles are seeking out new venues to share music with people. Some are performing at nightclubs, some at libraries, art galleries, outdoor spaces, and other non-traditional venues dedicated to the performing arts. What this says to me is that these performers are seeking new audiences - and apparently finding them if this trend is ongoing. A conversation I often have with my friends and colleagues is how to get our music to more people. How do we fill up out concert halls with a packed house? How can we bring our art to the communities in which we live? I think many of these ensembles have found the answer, and that is to bring the music to the audience. So much new music (especially experimental new music) is more fitting in a more relaxed setting than a concert hall provides, and people might be more inclined to sit and listen to a concert of challenging music if it is presented to them in an environment where they already feel relaxed and comfortable. I have more I could say on the topic, but if you want to know more you can check out my discussion of the Omaha Under the Radar Festival this past summer. I also noticed that the more “traditional” ensembles (string quartets, wind quintets, brass quintets) are programming more music by deceased (some long-deceased) composers. And why shouldn’t they? They have a much larger catalog to pull from and audiences have come to expect certain things from these ensembles. That isn’t to say they are not supporting new music, just that their numbers may lean more in favor of playing classic pieces of the genre in addition to new works and commissions. Also, my research was done with a very small sample, and the numbers might change if we were to consider, say, 100 chamber ensembles. Maybe the numbers would show stronger favor for deceased composers? Though, I would like to think that they would change very little. The ensembles that I chose are some of America’s (and Europe’s) top performing chamber groups right now. They are a benchmark of new music and are the trendsetters for new music worldwide. And it seems that trend is one that leans in favor of supporting living composers and encouraging the creation of new works in hopes of spreading contemporary music to the world. Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share any thoughts or comments below. It has been a while since the last KLANG post, mostly due to my crazy fall semester schedule, but I’m hoping to get on a more regular schedule again now that some of the craziness has died away. This week I would like to do a quick review of a couple recent festivals I attended last week - ICMC and the Electroacoustic Barn Dance. From September 25 through October 4 I was one the road with two friends of mine - Kramer Elwell and Chris Ozley - attending the International Computer Music Conference in Denton, TX (University of North Texas) and then the EA Barn Dance in Fredericksburg, VA (University of Mary Washington) and it was a blast! I have been a little hesitant to apply to ICMC in the past because the cost of the conference alone is pretty high (for good reason) and the cost of international travel has always been an issue. However, this year, ICMC was not only in America, but it was only 4 hours up the road from where I live (Austin, TX). I would have been crazy not to apply, right? So I did, and ended up presenting my 8-channel acousmatic piece Wind Chimes Clatter through the Mist and Fog. It was a really incredible experience, and I’m thrilled that I was able to attend the festival and present some of my music in such great company. In general I had a really great time at ICMC. Jonty Harrison (Univ. of Birmingham/BEAST director), Miller Puckette (UCSD and creator of Max/MSP) and Carla Scarletti (developer of KYMA) were the keynote speakers and all three gave incredible addresses. There were a number of wonderful and interesting papers presented and many of the pieces I heard were absolutely mind-blowing. With that said, I wasn’t quite mentally prepared for ICMC. I have been to conferences and festivals in the past, but they always last 2-3 days. ICMC was my first 7-day conference with events stacked right on top of each other, and more careful planning on my part would have saved me a lot of listening fatigue and concert burnout. I came away from the conference really loving some of the pieces I heard, while others really didn’t stick with me at all, which I guess is almost to be expected from a conference of that size and scope. However, I do feel that I may have missed out on some great pieces as a result of not listening attentively enough or not giving them a fair shake due solely to the fact that my brain was completely fried by the end of day 3. I do have some thoughts on the programming of the conference that may have improved (or at least lightened) the amount of fatigue i experienced, but that is a much larger topic for a later post. I think the highlight for me was hearing Jonty Harrison’s keynote address, followed by a live diffusion performance of his piece Unsound Objects (my favorite acousmatic piece!) the next day. I’ve gone to concerts in the past in which friends and colleagues get to hear a performance of their favorite works and they talk about what a moving and enriching experience it was. I had never fully experienced that until ICMC. I’ve heard plenty of pieces in concerts that I absolutely love and have had many unforgettable concert experiences, but sitting behind Jonty Harrison and watching him diffuse his piece in a hall with a diffusion system he designed himself was something I may never experience again. Not only that, I heard Unsound Objects the way Jonty intended it to be heard. It was diffused into the space exactly as he wanted, mixed as he wanted it mixed, and performed to perfection. Jonty closed out the concert and after he finished I was so taken by his performance that I was honestly speechless. I ran into Elainie Lillios (my former teacher at BGSU) right after the performance and she asked me what I thought of it. I didn’t have any words for her. She just smiled and said something to the affect of it being “like a religious experience, right?” and all I could do was shake my head in agreement. It really was one of the most moving musical experiences of my life. It was a performance that I will never forget and a presentation of piece that I (unfortunately) may never experience again. That alone, made the entire conference worthwhile, at least for me. Kramer, Chris and I got on the road Wednesday (a couple days before the end of ICMC) and drove up to Virginia (yes, all 21 hours of it) for the Electroacoustic Barn Dance. The three of us perform as a laptop trio called Cmd+Q and were scheduled to perform at a late night concert at the Barn Dance. I have to say the Barn Dance was like a breath of fresh air for me. While ICMC was a wonderful opportunity and experience, there was so much music presented that one can’t help but be overwhelmed and miss a lot of what goes on. In addition to that, the majority of the concerts were about 2 hours long (sometimes a little longer), and while I understand it has to be that way in order to program everyone’s music, it makes it difficult as an audience member to stay fully engaged throughout the conference. With that said, the UNT faculty (Jon Nelson, Andrew May, Panayiotis Kokoras), the CEMI staff and everyone involved did a bang-up job of running ICMC. I'm stoked and thankful that I was able to attend and present my music . The Barn Dance, however, took a different approach. There were a lot of concerts throughout the weekend, but they all last roughly an hour (sometimes a little under an hour). The pieces were programmed well, there was never a risk of listening fatigue and the performances were really astonishing. There was also a nice blend of fixed media and pieces with live performers on each concert in addition to a nice blend of styles and aesthetics. I heard everything from analog synthesis pieces to chamber ensembles with electronics to feedback performance, performance art and video/multimedia pieces. Suffice to say I had a wonderful time, and I was very happy that Cmd+Q was able to be a part of it. Mark Snyder has a really amazing program at Mary Washington and I urge everyone to apply to this festival in the future. I guarantee you will have an amazing time. Below are some highlights from ICMC and the Barn Dance along with some photos (none of which were taken by me personally…). Thanks for checking in, and I’ll be back soon with a review of Eric Honour’s CD Phantasm which features works for saxophone and electronics. ICMC Jonty Harison - Unsound Objects (truly a religious experience) Elainie Lillios - Contemplating Larry Mark Pilkington - Lens 7 Phillip Sink - Frayed Cities Per Bloland - Solis-EA Mike Polo - Warped Metals Michael Thompson - Pressure Chris Biggs - Decoherence John Gibson - Red Plumes Steven Ricks - Medusa in Fragments Keith Kirchoff - Seeing the Past through the Prism of Tomorrow Ioannis Andriotis - Lokassena Barn Dance Becky Brown - Hold Still Kaitlyn Wagner - I, Phillip Jerod Sommerfeldt - Dharma in Excelsis Joo Won Park - Eyelid Spasm Aaron Anderson - Studio Study I Mark Phillips - Waiting for Lucille Eric Honour - Extensions Eli Stine - Ring|Axel|Gear Anthony Morasco - Weld Tom Dempster - ahalugisdi unole Phillip Schroeder - Lightness is the Root of Gravity Andrew Walters - Red Plastic Bell Abstract Brian Sears - Reverberance (There were so many great pieces at both events, and this is just a short list of the pieces that stuck out in my mind. Check them out!) Ruminations on Lumpy Gravy, or Some Thoughts on Titles, or Maybe Something Else More Long-Winded...8/5/2015 For this week’s post I want to talk about something that has been on mind a lot over the last couple of years - titles. Composers, and all artists for that matter, spend a lot of time laboring over the titles of their works. I would say they also spend as much time arguing with each other about “good” and “bad” titles, but that's just an observation from personal experience. But it is this argument that I want to talk about here, specifically the idea of “bad” titles. I think this is a subject that should be discussed more frequently, mostly because of the heated arguments I’ve seen - and in some cases been a part of - wherein one party considers a title absolutely awful whereas the other party might love that same title. I’ll try to keep this a brief discussion of my own feelings on titles, what they mean, and what might constitute labeling a title as either good or bad.
I think before we can even talk about the difference in criteria for a good or bad title we first have to think about what the actual function of a title is. It might be more useful to first think about the function of titles in other art forms. For instance, what is the function of the title of a book or film? The main function in those mediums is to get the reader's/viewer's attention while simultaneously giving some kind of clue as to what will be unfolded in the book or movie - plot, characters, setting, or something else entirely. For these art forms a title is incredibly important. It not only has to immediately grab the reader’s or viewer’s attention but also has to give a glimpse into the work without giving too much away or being too vague. Creating an effective title for a book or film is really an art in itself. I would argue the same goes for visual arts (painting, sculpture, digital video, etc.). Even in the case of abstract art, the title can give the viewer insight to the mind of the artist or process employed in creating the piece and also help provide context for the work that might not necessarily be immediately visible. But what about music? Music is a different animal than the arts presented above, mostly because it is essentially just abstract sound. Music, regardless of it's complexity and beauty, is just vibration of air molecules. Books contain words and language, which we have ascribed meaning to. As long as one speaks the language of the book they can make sense out of what is inside. Films contain moving images and dialogue, which again create an immediate connection for the viewer to make sense out of what they are seeing. Visual arts, even the most abstract, can have some kind of meaning and context given to them even from a simple association of a well-crafted title. Sound, though, has no inherent meaning, until we give it meaning. We can attribute certain characteristics to sounds - consonant, dissonant, rich, abrasive, high, low, loud, soft - but these terms don’t describe anything other than acoustical properties of the sound. The only situation in which music can really start to take on meaning beyond acoustical properties is when there is an accompanying text. This is still problematic because if one were to remove the text and replace it with gibberish the music itself would not change. By that I mean that the “meaning” and characteristics of the sounds would be no different, but the extra-musical association with those sounds would take on a completely different meaning, or take on no meaning at all! So, again, what is the function of a title in music? Well, first, a title is simply a way of naming a piece of music, making it easy to reference whether that is for programming purposes, cataloging, etc. Giving a piece a title is really just a means of identifying it. But that seems like a gross oversimplification of this topic, so let's dig a little deeper. I think it’s good to think about the historical use of titles. Looking back to the Medieval and Renaissance periods, a large portion of the recorded catalog of music is vocal music - both sacred and secular - in which titles were often derived from the text used. Moving into the Baroque period instrumental music, cantatas and staged operas became more common. The titles for operas and cantatas typically came from the libretto used, so there is still the text association. Instrumental music often served some sort of function, whether it was for dance, court functions or other rituals. The titles for these instrumental works were often derived from the style or form of the piece (sarabande, gigue, suite, sonata, etc.). That isn’t to say this was always the case. Some instrumental works did have programmatic subtitles, such as Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” concerto. Still, many titles were a reflection of the form and/or function of the piece. This practice can been found throughout Classical period rep, but more pieces with poetic or descriptive subtitles (Hammerklavier, Jupiter symphony, “Surprise” symphony, and others) start popping up in addition to the more general form/function and opus number titles. In the interest of time we’ll skip through the Romantic period in which many pieces, specifically instrumental works, were titled with programmatic and evocative titles that gave the listener little or no insight to the form or function of a piece. Going into the 20th century this approach to descriptive/programmatic titles became more common practice, to the point that I would say it’s far more common to see pieces with a “programmatic” title than with a title such as symphony, sonata, cantata, etc. So, why has Western music moved in this direction, and what does it mean for the function of a title in 21st century music? I would say that one explanation for moving away from form-descriptive titles is that many works, specifically experimental compositions, no longer follow those more traditional forms. That isn’t to say that composers are not still using more traditional forms, it just seems like a less common practice in the 21st century, and uses of "symphonic form" or sonata form is often a deformation of the traditional formal trajectory. However, some composers, and I’m thinking specifically about mid-century atonal composers, used what seem like programmatic titles but they actually describe the structure or form of the piece in some way. These titles are like a middle ground between the two methods of titling a work (programmatic and form/function). Think about Boulez’s Structures, which is a piece focused on the large-scale and small-scale structural framework of the piece. Stockhausen’s Kreuzspiel (cross-play) describes the registral interaction of the instruments. Lutoslawski’s Chain I and Chain II reference the composer’s use of what he called chain form. This is really just a slightly more poetic approach to form/function titles. But lets get back to the programmatic titles, which are really at the heart of what I'm talking about with the "good" vs. "bad" dichotomy. Why do composers choose more evocative titles? Sometimes the title of a composition is a reference to some kind of external element. Maybe the title references a piece of visual art, architecture, a book or short story, maybe a line from a poem. This explains where the title comes from, and in some way should give the listener clues as to how it relates to the music. The connections may be difficult to hear on the surface, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist in some form. The use of these “programmatic” titles can help provide the listener with some kind of mental image the composer intends to evoke with the sounds he or she creates. Maybe the piece was inspired by a work of visual art and the creation of the music mimics the structure of art work in some way. Maybe the behavior of two instruments references the interaction of two characters in a book. Still, though, when dealing with music - and at this point I will only be referring to instrumental music with no aid of text - we are dealing with abstract sound with no actual meaning beyond the acoustical properties of vibrating air molecules. I hate to keep coming back to that, but I think it’s a good point to keep in mind. In a way, a programmatic title can provide some level of insight to the piece for the listener, but when the title doesn’t reference a clearly audible element of the music what is the point? Could that title be replaced with something else equally poetic and evocative, but with a different mental image attached to it? I don’t think there is a clear-cut answer to this question, but I do think it is a question any composer should think about if they intend for their title to give the listener some kind of context or insight to the music. All of this brings me to the final topic of “good” titles and “bad” titles (took me long enough, I know...). Personally, I don’t think that bad titles exist, and I think arguing over the idea of a good or bad title is kind of silly. I think some titles can be more memorable than others. Some titles are more descriptive of the form, which is fine. Some titles are very programmatic in nature, which is also fine especially if the title DOES evoke the mental images or emotional reaction the composer intends. But ultimately, music (and all art for that matter) is a product of the artist and he or she should feel comfortable giving their work whatever title they see fit. I know that sound overly Cageian and is kind of a cop-out answer, but I feel there is a lot of truth to that sentiment. One example in defense of my position is Frank Zappa and the often ridiculous titles he used for his music. Frank Zappa is arguably one of the most prominent American composers/musicians of the late 20th century, and was a composer who made a mark in rock, blues, fusion, experimental music and orchestral concert music (I mean come on, Boulez conducted some of his music). He also used titles like “Lumpy Gravy,” “Black Napkins,” “It Must be a Camel,” “G-Spot Tornado,” “Toads of the Short Forest,” and one of my personal favorites “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask.” It’s also worth mentioning that all of these titles are for instrumental works. Keep in mind that humor and zany lyrics were a staple of Zappa’s music, so it makes sense his titles would just as ridiculous. But I don’t think that makes the point of his strange titles any less valid. While I don’t think the titles often add anything to music itself, they also don’t take anything away. I'm sure you would never hear someone say "man I love that song, but if only Frank hadn't titled 'Camarillo Brillo...'". And you would be hard-pressed to argue that these titles don’t instantly grab your attention and aren’t delightfully memorable. I guess my point here is that, as the artist, your title should be whatever you want it to be. I'm going to go into a bit of a tangential argument, but I’ve had conversations with musicians who maintain that a piece should never rely on the theory and/or process used to create it, and the final product, the music itself, should be the primary criteria for evaluating a piece. I’m inclined to agree with that. However, if someone is willing to disregard theory and process as evaluating criteria then the title of a piece should be the absolute LEAST of our worries when evaluating a piece. Ultimately, a “good” or “bad” title is completely subjective, and it’s a waste of everyone’s time to talk about the merits of a “good” title. I think it's more important to think about creating a memorable or appropriate title. After sitting through a long concert I might not remember a piece titled "Sonata no. 4 for oboe and piano" but I would definitely remember a piece with the title "Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt" (yes, that is another Zappa title). That went on a lot longer than I had planned, but it turned out I had more to say on the topic than I thought. For an added bonus, in case you’re curious, I included a list of some of my favorite titles below. What are some of your favorite titles, and why do you like them? Until next time! Aaron Cassidy i, purples, spat blood, laugh of beautiful lips Pierre Boulez Pli Selon Pli (Fold Over Fold/Fold Upon Fold) Natasha Barrett Racing Through, Racing Unseen Luciano Berio Eindrucke (Impressions) Joseph Schwantner and the mountains rising nowhere George Crumb Ancient Voices of Children John Adams On the Transmigration of Souls Morgan Krauss Pallid Tongues Chris Chandler Deep in Liquid Indigo Frank Zappa The Girl in the Magnesium Dress Elainie Lillios Dreams in the Desert Morgan Krauss Pallid Tongues Mikel Kuehn ...lilac shrieks and scarlet bellowings Brian Ferneyhough Schatten aus Wasser und Stein (Shadows Made of Water and Stone). Fausto Romitelli Professor Bad Trip Welcome back! This is the second topic of a three-part series on rhythm techniques. The first part of the series covered the topic of irrational meter and in this part I will be discussing complex tuplets, specifically nested tuplets (tuplets inside of tuplets). This is a rhythmic device that can be perplexing and even polarizing. The very sight of a nested tuplet can send some musicians into intellectual bliss while other musicians might react with total apathy and others into a fiery rage. My goal with this post is to discuss nested tuplets, how they are created, how they can be broken down in a musical context and some reasons why a composer might choose to employ complex tuplets (whether nested or single-level) in his or her music, and ultimately the practicality (of lack thereof) of using nested tuplets. I want to begin by defining nested tuplets. A nested tuplet is a group of notes in a measure of music that have been divided into multiple levels of tuplet rhythms. In other words, the composer creates a top-level or first-level tuplet and each of the individual divisions of the tuplet can then be further divided into second-level tuplet divisions, and those into even further tuplet divisions (this can get out of hand very quickly…) to create a multi-level nested tuplet unit, which might look something like this: A nested tuplet rhythm is created using a top-down approach. First create the top-level tuplet, which looks like a typical tuplet you would see in music. When that tuplet has been created you can treat each subdivision of the tuplet individually to create a simple division of the beat (e.g. 8ths into 16ths, 16ths into 32nds, etc.) or you can divide the subdivisions into further tuplet divisions. The example above is a group of 5 eighth notes over the time of 4 eighth notes. Inside of this group of quintuple eighth notes, the first two eighths are further divided into 3 triplet eighths, the next two into a set of quintuple sixteenths and the last eighth subdivided into a 32nd note and a dotted-sixteenth (not a tuplet). This is a two-level nested tuplet in which the quintuple eighths are the top level and the triplet and quintuplet are the second level of the tuplet. Let’s break this down a little further: In this group of notes the top-level group of five 8ths are moving at a slightly faster rate than a set of four 8ths in that span of time. In turn, each of the second-level tuplets move at a faster rate than they would as top-level tuplets. The example below shows the rhythms in a single measure presented as a nested grouping and as top-level tuplet rhythms not under a grouping of 5:4 8ths. Click on the image below to hear the difference between the two. So that’s how a nested tuplet is constructed. While this might be helpful for a composer wanting to create this kind of rhythm, it isn’t very helpful for a performer who is expected to perform the rhythm. The top-down approach is, I feel, equally helpful in deconstructing these tuplets. First determine the division of the top-level tuplet, which will let you know how many equal divisions of the tuplet there are. Count out how that tuplet would sound as individual rhythmic impulses without the added tuplet and non-tuplet subdivisions. In the example above the top-level tuplet is a group of five 8ths. Start by counting two beats subdivided into 4 even 8th-notes, then two beats subdivided into five 8ths and end with a group of another group of regularly subdivided 8ths, a total of six beats. We’ll think of it as one measure of 6|4. The next step I would take would be to add the first second-level tuplet, in this case the triplet. Again, count two beats of 8ths and then the first two beats of the quintuplet 8ths would be counted as a triplet followed by the last three quintuple 8ths and finally two more beats of regularly subdivided 8ths. You could also count beat two of the measure as triplet to feel the difference between a regular triplet and the second-level nested triplet. The last step is to add the second-level tuplet, the quintuplet 16ths. Follow the same process of counting a 6|4 measure with the preceding 8ths into the nested tuplet and the final two beats of eighth notes. Add the 32nd and dotted 16th to complete the entire nested tuplet unit. The entire breakdown might look something like this: While this might seem very time-consuming, I’ve found it to be a very effective method for deconstructing how to count and feel the nested tuplets. Though I’m not a performer, I have had to follow this same process when composing nested tuplets. I think it’s important that a composer know how a nested tuplet will sound and feel in context, and this process of breaking the tuplet down piece by piece has been incredibly useful for me, both when writing my own pieces and while analysing pieces by other composers. Now that I’ve gone through defining nested tuplets, learning how to create a nested tuplet grouping and also breaking one down, the next topic at hand is the question of why a composer would choose to use this kind of rhythm. What is the benefit of nested tuplets? Well, let’s think about the purpose of using any tuplet. Tuplets of all kinds - triplets, quintuplets, etc. - are groups of notes in equal subdivisions that are not typically allowed by meter used. In more general terms, a tuplet can be used to increase or decrease the density of notes in a given amount of time and thus allowing for new rhythmic variations or a new “feel” to the music; a triplet beat that uses an 8th and a quarter note as opposed to a beat using a dotted 8th and a 16th. Nested tuplets achieve the same ends, but on multiple levels. Let’s say a composer is writing a melodic phrase consisting of 4 measure of 5|8, but with a feeling of energy gain in the final measure. The most obvious means of creating energy gain is to create a higher density of notes that move faster than what came before. One way to do this would be to simply double the rhythmic value of the notes - write 16ths instead of 8ths - but that isn’t always an elegant choice, at least not in my humble opinion. Sometimes I’m looking for a more gradual or subtle increase of energy (and yes, I have taken on the role of the hypothetical composer), so instead of doubling rhythmic values, I could choose to divide this measure of five 8ths into a set of 6 8th notes over the entire duration of the measure. Remember, though, that this is not the same as a measure of 6|8, as the six 8ths are happening over the course of what would normally be five 8ths. Now let’s also imagine that we want a gradual increase of energy within the measure from start to finish. We could then divide the first two 8ths into a triplet, the second two into a set of four 16th and the last two into a quintuplet of 16ths, which would look like this: The nested tuplet bar looks more like a bar of 3|4, but it moves at a faster rate than if the bar were written in 3|4 as opposed to a nested tuplet in a measure of 5|8. Click on the image below for a comparison of the measure in 5|8 followed immediately by the same rhythms in a bar of 3|4. In short, the purpose of this kind of rhythmic grouping is to manipulate the energy of a gesture, whether that energy is increasing, decreasing or becoming increasingly jerky and disorienting. Furthermore, by using these kinds of rhythmic groupings measure after measure a composer can create a waxing and waning sense of gestural motion while also obscuring any sense of rhythmic or metric regularity. All of this now leads us to a different question of why a composer would want to use these kinds of rhythms. We know from the paragraph above why they might be employed for the manipulation of time, but there is also the question of why they would be used on the basis of practicality. There’s the obvious argument of surface difficulty, not just in performing this kind of rhythm but also in just understanding how they work. These kinds of rhythms are rarely (if ever) talked about outside of composition seminars and lessons, so it is likely that many musicians never come into contact with nested tuplets, let alone find themselves in a situation in which they need to perform nested tuplets. So, given that these rhythms are seldom used (outside of the realm of “New Complexity” composers), not often taught, and are incredibly difficult to perform, why would anyone want to utilize this kind of rhythmic device in a piece? Won’t it limit the number of performers who will want to learn that piece, and in turn limit the number of performances the piece will receive? The simple answer to these questions is yes, writing difficult music (rhythmically speaking) will inevitably limit performance opportunities. However, I don’t feel that limited performance prospects should dissuade a composer from using these kinds of rhythms. The example above which compares the nested tuplet in 5|8 to the same rhythms in a bar of 3|4 demonstrates that in order to get the desired sense of energy in a gesture, and to squeeze a certain number of rhythmic impulses into a given amount of time one must write the rhythms in this way, even at the risk of the music being far more complex visually. The audience listening may not be able to hear that what they listening to is a complex grouping of nested rhythms, but what they will hear is the sense of energy gain or energy loss that the composer desires, and that communication is what is really important. One argument in defense of nested tuplets is that at the end of the day they are just rhythms. They are quantifiable, measurable rhythms. If one goes through the process of breaking down a nested grouping (as long and painful as it may be) then the rhythms can be learned, and eventually performed, given rest of the elements of the gesture are idiomatic for the instrument. The rhythms may be difficult to play and they may be even more difficult to read (and for the record they are also difficult to write), but that doesn’t mean that composers should shy away from using them, especially if it is the clearest way to notate the desired rhythmic gesture. There was a time when the rhythmic language of Debussy was highly complex. Elliott Carter’s system of metric modulation was a radical idea in the mid-20th century. But composers of the New Complexity “school” have been using these kinds of rhythmic devices since the early 1970s, and I think that after 45 years it’s time to stop looking at these rhythms with skepticism, confusion and disdain and accept nested tuplets as a viable tool for compositions of the 21st century. After all, it’s just a bunch of numbers, right! This post is the first of a series of three posts on the topic of rhythm, specifically complex rhythmic notation. The first segment (the one you're currently reading) will cover irrational meter, the second segment will focus on nested tuplets, and the last on generating rhythms through the use of sieves. My goal is to shed some light on these topics and (hopefully) clearly explain these more esoteric, complicated and sometimes overlooked rhythmic devices. I chose to do irrational meter first because it’s something I’ve recently become very interested in. Also, I had two separate conversations in one week recently (with two different people) on the topic of irrational meter, so it’s pretty fresh in my head right now. I don’t think it’s farfetched to say that many musicians never come into contact with irrational meters, and I personally have never heard the term “irrational meter” mentioned in a theory class (graduate and undergraduate). But, just because it isn’t a commonly used or understood rhythmic device doesn’t mean it isn’t a useful device. It’s like a rarely used, but sometimes necessary tool you keep in the bottom of a toolbox, just in case you need it one day, like a shingle froe. So, what is irrational meter? In music, the term irrational does not have the same meaning as in mathematics with irrational numbers, which are real numbers that can’t be expressed as a ratio of integers, like Pi. In music, irrational is used to identify a meter in which the denominator is not a power of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8, 16...). Some examples of irrational denominators are 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, and these numbers represent fractions of a whole note - 1/3 of a whole note, 1/7, 1/10, etc. (more on that later). A measure notated with irrational meter uses standard rhythmic values, but the notes are played at a slightly faster or slower rate than normal (not irrational) meters. The example below shows 2 bars of music with the 2nd bar written in an irrational meter. We’ll dissect this later. The point of an irrational meter is make a measure faster or slower in relation to the measures that come before and after. Another way to think about it would be to consider a measure with irrational meter as a very temporary change of tempo. But how is irrational meter created? The denominator of meter is derived by determining how notes fit into a whole note. Common divisions of a whole note are 2 half notes, 4 quarters, 16 sixteenths, etc. The same concept applies to irrational meters, but with different divisions of the whole. If a bar were broken into 6 equal divisions (also written as 2 quarter-note triplets) you could use 6 as a denominator. A measure using 6 as the denominator would be written as quarter-notes that move at the rate of a quarter-note triplet in a bar of 4|4. A bar could be broken into 12 equal divisions (eighth-note triplets), making the denominator 12. The numerator of an irrational meter represents the number of denominator divisions that are contained in the measure (4|4 containing 4 quarters, 6|8 containing 6 eighth notes, etc.). So, let's break this down with some examples. To create a measure of 5|12 we first need to break a whole note in 12 equal divisions. This can represented as 4 beats of eighth-note triplets. Each note of the triplet is 1/12 of a whole note. If we were to excerpt 5 triplet-eighths of the total 12 and put them in a measure by themselves that would be a measure of 5|12, written as 5 eighth notes. These 8th notes are not played at the same rate as the eighth notes in a measure of 4|4, but at the rate of triplet eighth notes in a measure of 4|4. In this example, the measure of 5|12 moves at a faster rate, or tempo, than a measure of 4|4, because the eighth notes actually represent 1/12 of a whole note instead of 1/8 of a whole note. If the quarter-note tempo at 4|4 were 60 BPM, that would make the eighth note pulse 120 BPM in 4|4. In the measure of 5|12 the eighth note tempo would be 180 BPM, because a triplet eighth note is three times faster than a quarter note (60 x 2 = 120; 60 x 3 = 180). The example below is the four measures in context. It’s a little more rare, but you can also use irrational meter to create a temporary slowing of the tempo. For example, the denominator 7 implies 7 equal divisions of a whole note. This is typically conceived as 7 quarter notes. However, it could theoretically also be written as a group of 7 eighth notes at a slightly slower rate than would fill the space of 8 eighth notes, like a group of 2 eighths in one beat of 6|8 measure. Granted, tuplets of a longer beat division (2:3, 7:8) are far more rare than tuplets of a shorter beat division (3:2, 5:4, etc.), but that doesn’t mean they aren’t possible. A measure of 8|7, with the 7 representing eighth notes at a slower rate, would be written as follows: A measure of 8|7 with the quarter-note pulse would look like this: This example causes a temporary slowing of the tempo, as opposed to a temporary quickening of the tempo with 5|12. However, when using 7 as a denominator for eighth notes it is a good idea to note in the score that the 7 represents the eighth note, as 7 is often a denominator used to represent quarter-notes. One way around this would be to put a metronome marking in the score. For instance, if the quarter-note tempo at 4|4 is 80 BPM, a measure of 8|7 with an eighth note pulse would have a tempo of eighth = 140 BPM. However, if the 7 denominator is a quarter-note pulse, then the quarter-note tempo would be 140 BPM, making the eighth-note tempo of the measure 280 BPM. This won’t have any impact on the aural result, but will effect the notation of the measure and how the performer interprets the it. If the goal is to make the measure seem slower than surrounding measure the eighth-note pulse should be used. If the goal is to make the measure move more quickly (almost 2x faster!) then the quarter-note 7 denominator should be used. The examples above all show how irrational meter can be created, but what does it sound like in a more musical context? The example below contains an measure of irrational meter sandwiched between two measure of standard 5|4 and 4|4 meters. The measure is approached by a triplet and the first beat after the irrational meter is a beat of 4 sixteenth notes to help demonstrate the changing rhythmic rates in relation to the quarter-note meters. So there's a little crash course in irrational meter. One questions you might be asking yourself at this point is why would someone choose to do this? Doesn’t it make reading the score complicated for the performer? Isn’t there an easier way to notate these rhythms if they’re basically just tuplets? Why should a performer have to mathematically analyze the music just to play it? These are all great questions, and the short answer is that irrational meter achieves a certain rhythmic push and pull that is really not possible to notate any other way. The whole point of using irrational meter is to use an irregular grouping of an uncommon fractional division of a beat. You wouldn’t use an irrational meter of 6|12 because that is 6 eighth-note triplets, which can be written more clearly in 2|4. However, 5|12 can only expressed as an irrational measure, because you can't divide a quarter-note into just 3 triplet eighths. That same 5|12 measure could be written as a measure of 5|8 with an 8th note tempo 3 times faster than the original quarter-note tempo, but I feel that would be just as confusing for a performer to read. Both options present problems, but only for sight reading purposes. I think it also goes without saying that music that uses irrational meter is not intended to be sight read perfectly (if at all). At the end of the day it is up to the composer to choose which method best communicates their idea to the performer in the cleanest notation possible. Tune in next week for a discussion on nested tuplets, how to break them down, how to create them and some thoughts on why a composer might use nested tuplets. Until next time! This week I would like to talk about something that has been on my mind a lot recently, that being the practice of notation of physical gesture. What does it mean to notate physical gesture, you might ask. Let’s think for a second about what we’re looking at when we read music. We see a line of musical symbols displayed as rhythms, pitches (sometimes), dynamics, articulations, etc. This is a representation of what should result from the physical actions of the performer playing his or her instrument. But what if, instead, a score provided instructions for how the performer should play as opposed to what the performer should play? This is the central idea to notating physical gesture. The first time I came into contact with this type of notation was with Frank Cox’s Recoil for solo cello. In Recoil, Cox notates the desired pitches and rhythms, but not as a single line of music. He notates the physical motion and gesture of the performer through a multi-staffed scored in which the performer realizes all staves simultaneously. The staves represent (from top to bottom) 1. bow pressure/position (right hand only), 2. the string(s) which should be played (right and left hand) and 3. the pitches fingered with the left hand (left hand only). Each staff is rhythmically independent, resulting in a contrapuntal relationship of physical movement, as opposed to a contrapuntal relationship of separate distinct voices. I find this method of notation very fascinating. There is so much physicality to playing a musical instrument, but as musicians (specifically in the Western art music tradition), the instructions we look at - the score - provides us with the sonic result, but not with instructions on how to create that result. Cox has taken a different approach, a prescriptive rather than descriptive approach to his notation in Recoil. Other composer including Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus K. Hubler and Aaron Cassidy also practice their own methods of this form of notation. With all of these composers (among others interested in this notion), the concept of physical gesture of the performer - the actual motion required to make the sound - is what is communicated to the performer. It is the performer’s job to then communicate the resultant sound to the listener. The following are examples of scores that use this method of notating gesture over sonic result: An initial question one might ask when looking at these scores is why choose this method of notation over traditional notation. What does the composer gain from taking this approach? What does the performer gain from this notation? Does the notation really accomplish something different than traditional notation, or does it just serve to complicate the learning process and performance experience for the performer? In addition to providing the performer with a completely foreign notational concept, the counterpoint of the physical actions is incredibly intricate and the presentation of the score is often highly complex and difficult to decode. So, why do this?
My response to these questions is that music of this nature really can’t be notated any other way. Take a piece like Recoil, in which the bow pressure and direction have their own rhythmic line while the left hand is changing pitches with different rhythmic patterns, often completely separate from bow changes. At the same time the performer is asked to play the same pitch patterns on different strings. To notate the resultant sound of those actions would be close to impossible. Even if one were to notate that resultant sound, would it be less complicated than Cox’s notation? What if the desired result is impossible to notate? Richard Barrett’s piece EARTH for trombone and percussion (shown above) uses a similar notation that Cox uses in Recoil. The trombonist reads multiple staves that display slide position and the partial to be played. At certain times the slide position and partials do not align rhythmically, just as the left and right hand don't always align in Recoil. How could a composer notate the sonic result of that kind of physical action? More importantly, how would the performer know exactly how to produce that resultant sound? In this situation, there is no clearer way to notate the music than by describing to the performer the physical actions necessary to produce the music. Another argument in favor of this type of approach is that all notation is really just a system of abstract symbols. We can attach any meaning we want to those symbols and realize them in any fashion we feel necessary in order to achieve our artistic goals.. In the situation of Cox’s Recoil he uses traditional notation, and prescribes a new meaning to what the rhythms and symbols represent, as does Barrett. Lachenmann takes a fully graphical approach with his piece Guero (shown above), wherein the graphic images represent the motions of the player and position of the hands on the keyboard. Cassidy’s The Crutch of Memory (shown above) uses both standard and graphic notation, all of which is representative of movement rather than sound. Really, this is a similar approach to tablature for stringed instruments, which uses numbers to represent fret positions and staff lines to represent strings. Some composers, including Aaron Cassidy, refer to their scores as using tablature notation. Tablature also does not provide the performer with the resultant sound, but instead with the physical placement and motion of their hand(s). Going back to the opening paragraph of this post, the performer is instructed how to play, not what is heard. There is a lot more that can explored concerning this topic, and other types of nontraditional approaches to notation, too, but this post is intended to just be an introduction on the topic. If you’re a musician interested in this method of composer/performer interaction, I strongly encourage you to explore some of this music through listening, analysis of these pieces, and even try to play some of these works if you’re feeling adventurous! If nothing else, it will give you a new perspective of all the physical action(s) of performing music, even something as straight-forward as a simply notated melody. I ran across a New York Times opinion article from 2007, posted by composer/guitarist Glenn Branca. The article was a list of 25 questions, created by Branca, addressed to composers (and musicians in general, I guess), on issues of contemporary classical music in the 21st century. The list of questions is based on the same idea as David Hilbert’s 23 mathematical problems published in 1900. I don’t think that’s an essential connection to make, but Branca mentioned it, so I figured I would include it here.
I think some of these questions are genuinely interesting and important for musicians (specifically composers) to ask themselves, but some of them are a little ridiculous, if not completely unnecessary. Also, and this may be a little harsh, but I feel like a lot of these questions are from the viewpoint of someone whose experience with contemporary music is mostly limited to the orchestral world, which I feel is problematic. But that’s a different discussion for a different time. Regardless, I enjoyed answering these questions and I’m interested to hear other people’s answers to the questions. Here’s the list, along with my answers: 1. Should a modern composer be judged against only the very best works of the past?
2. Can there be truly objective criteria for judging a work of art?
3. If a composer can write one or two or more great works of music why cannot all of his or her works be great?
4. Why does the contemporary musical establishment remain so conservative when all other fields of the arts embrace new ideas?
5. Should a composer, if confronted with a choice, write for the musicians who will play a piece or write for the audience who will hear it?
6. When is an audience big enough to satisfy a composer or a musician? 100? 1000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? 100,000,000?
7. Is the symphony orchestra still relevant or is it just a museum?
8. Is micro-tonality a viable compositional tool or a burned out modernist concept?
9. In an orchestra of 80 to 100 musicians does the use of improvisation make any sense?
10. What is the dichotomy between dissonance and tonality and where should the line be drawn?
11. Can the music that sooths the savage beast be savage?
12. Should a composer speak with the voice of his or her own time?
13. If there’s already so much good music to listen to what’s the point of more composers writing more music?
14. If Bach were alive today would he be writing in the baroque style?
15. Must all modern composers reject the past, a la John Cage or Milton Babbitt’s “Who Cares If You Listen?”
16. Is the symphony an antiquated idea or is it, like the novel in literature, still a viable long form of music?
17. Can harmony be non-linear?
18. Was Cage’s “4:33” a good piece of music?
19. Artists are expected to accept criticism, should critics be expected to accept it as well?
20. Sometimes I’m tempted to talk about the role that corporate culture plays in the sale and distribution of illegal drugs throughout the United States and the world, and that the opium crop in Afghanistan has increased by 86 percent since the American occupation, and the fact that there are 126,000 civilian contractors in Iraq, but what does this have to do with music?
21. Can the orchestra be replaced by increasingly sophisticated computer-sampling programs and recording techniques, at least as far as recordings are concerned?
22. When a visual artist can sell a one-of-a-kind work for hundreds of thousands of dollars and anyone on the internet can have a composer’s work for nothing, how is a composer going to survive? And does it matter?
23. Should composers try to reflect in their music the truth of their natures and the visions of their dreams whether or not this music appeals to a wide audience?
24. Why are advances in science and technology not paralleled by advances in music theory and compositional technique?
25. Post-Post Minimalism? Since Minimalism and Post-Minimalism we’ve seen a short-lived Neo-Romanticism, mainly based on misguided attempts to return to a 19th century tonality, then an improv scene which had little or nothing to do with composition, then a hodge-podge of styles: a little old “new music,” a little “60’s sound colorism”, then an eclectic pomo stew of jazz, rock and classical, then a little retro-chic Renaissance … even tonal 12-tonalism. And now in Germany some “conceptual” re-readings of Wagner. What have I left out? Where’s the music?
Well, there it is. Glenn Branca’s 25 questions and Jon Fielder’s 25 answers. I’d like to get a discussion going about this, for anyone interested in humoring me. Also, any reactions or feelings about the questions themselves would be an interesting discussion as well. Put your answers, comments, concerns in a comment below and let’s get a discussion going! Here are some exciting concerts happening around the country in the first month of the new year! If you live in or near any of these cities please consider making a trip out to support contemporary music in your area.
Roomful of Teeth as part of Trinity Wall Street's Twelfth Night Festival - Mon Jan 5, 2015 at 6:00 PM at Trinity Wall St 74 Trinity Pl, New York, NY San Francisco Tape Music Festival - Jan 9-11, 2015 at the Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St, San Francisco, CA Spektral Quartet: Snowpocalypse Antidoe (with special guests Paper Mice) - Fri, Jan 9, 2015, 10:00 PM at the Hideout, 1354 W Wabansia Ave, Chicago, IL Zeitgeist Ensemble: Lowertown Listening Session presents Stockhausen's "Mikrophonie" - Thur, Jan 22, 2015, 5:30 PM at Studio Z, 275 E 4th St Suite 200, St. Paul, MN Fifth House Ensemble performing Bartok, Khachaturian, Sheng and Hartke - Sun Jan 25, 2015, 3:00 PM at Pianoforte, 1335 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL San Francisco Contemporary Music Players: Project Ten Fourteen performing WORLD PREMIERES by Agata Zubel, Du Yun and 3 NEW WORKS by Harrison Birtistle - Sun Jan 25, 2015, 7:00 PM at Cal Performances Hertz Hall, Berkeley, CA Festival of New Music, Florida State University with special guests David Lang and Ursula Oppens - Janury 29-31, 2015, FSU College of Music Liz Pearse and Karl Larson perform Messiaen's "Harawi" Sunday Feb 22, 8:30 PM at Contellation, 3111 N. Western, Chicago, IL November 21-22 marked the 14th annual Electric LATEX festival, and was also my first time participating. LATEX is an annual student-run electronic music festival that is made up of students from the University of North Texas, The University of Texas at Austin, Tulane University, Louisianan State University, Rice University and Texas A & M.
LATEX 2014 was hosted by the University of North Texas, and they did an absolutely fantastic job hosting. The three concerts were held in the Merrill Ellis Black Box Theater, which houses a 16-speaker sound system capable of independent 16-channel diffusion. The concerts featured fixed media works as well as pieces utilizing live performers on both acoustic and electronic instruments. Some of the highlight pieces for me at the festival were the following: Purple Quartz by Tim Harenda (UNT) for cello, bass clarinet, bass flute, piano, vibraphone and electronics Aerophoneme by Eli Fieldsteel (UT) for flute and SuperCollider I am Afraid to Sleep Because of What I Might Dream by Stephen Barkan (Tulane) for fixed media Homoousis by Eric Evans (UNT) for flute, cello and fixed electronics I presented my own piece, Wind Chimes Clatter through the Mist and Fog, for 8-channel fixed electronics. In addition to presenting my own piece (with some light diffusion), I also got to do a kind of collabroative performance with my friend Steve Sachse on his piece Improvisation for SuperCollider and NanoKONTROL, in which Steve performed the electronic component while I did a 16-channel diffusion of the piece. While I was a student at Bowling Green State University working on my MM we had a similar festival called Threshold with Ball State University and the Oberlin Conservatory (the University of Miami has recently joined) and it was always a great time and a wonderful opportunity for student composers of electronic music to share their art with each other. I think the most beneficial aspect of conferences like these is that they are run entirely by students. Not only do the students get an opportunity to present their music, but the hosting school gains experience with the ins and outs of putting on a festival and tall of the logistics that go into putting on a multi-concert event. Next year's LATEX will be hosted by Rice University and is sure to be another wonderful showcase of music by Louisiana and Texas composers. The following are some photos from the 2014 LATEX festival (courtesy of CEMI at UNT): |
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